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4-year-old Virginia boy befriends baby deer while playing outside

ShooterMike

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2020
Messages
951
Location
Caroline County, Virginia
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MASSANUTTEN, Va. (WWBT) - It’s an experience Stephanie Brown and her son Dominic will never forget after he brought home a new friend he made while playing outside.

As the Westmoreland County family was packing up to leave their rental in Massanutten on Tuesday morning, 4-year-old Dominic was outside playing.

Stephanie says while she finished taking things out of the fridge, she heard Dominic’s footsteps at the door as he cleaned off his boots.

But what she saw when she peeked around the corner definitely took her by surprise.

“I see him and the baby deer standing next to each other almost to come inside!! I was completely shocked! I froze for a second because I literally didn’t know what to do!” she said.

That’s when she quietly walked away to grab her phone to snap the picture that has now gone viral on Facebook.

Stephanie says Dominic acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary and wanted to bring his new friend inside for some cereal.

“After I got the picture I asked Dominic to walk his new friend back to the woods so his mommy could find him,” she said.

Dominic then walked his new friend back to the woods and the family left.

Copyright 2021 WWBT. All rights reserved.

Semper Fi,
Mike
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The area this happened is a ski lodge that allows no hunting. If you have ever been there, you know it’s basically a petting zoo. Now this kid will grow up to an “anti hunter”.
 
Many years ago In Texas, I had some help from a super nice guy when my car broke down on the way to a hunt.

He happened to be a hunter too, and had just shot a dandy buck. We got talking, and he was telling me about the quality of bucks in the area, including a story about how his family took a yearling buck in and it grew into something like a 140in class after they released it into the wild a year later. They knew it was him because he’d casually come by and visit.

I thought it was a bit of nonsense....until he showed me photos of his kids riding on the yearling’s back and the deer peeing on news paper placed on the floor; that’s right, he potty trained it.

Wild, huh.

Guy fixed my car, let me hunt his property until my car was ready, put me up for a night in his hunting cabin, hosted me for meals with him and his family. There are some incredibly generous people in the world still, it’s a blessing to cross paths with them.
 
When I lived in Tennessee there was a creek at the bottom of the hill in the backyard that I go walk and explore. There was a small buck who would get with 5-10 feet and just hang out. I could talk and walk around and he just followed at his comfortable distance. I don't know if he was expecting food like somebody else fed him or what. I hadn't started hunting yet and it wouldn't have been legal to kill him there. I had probably over 25 encounters with him...it was pretty neat-o
 
My wife turn our 1 acre wood lot into a deer sancutuary, she tricked me. Told me we can move out to the countryside and get some lands. Didnt tell me that I wasnt allowed to hunt on my own land. We have 3 feeders at the wood line between our back yard and the woods. She just want to be able to see deer from our deck, which she can PRENTY. At any given day, I see a herd visit us once they got used to the schedule of the feeder's throwing out corn. Some of the bucks I see that visit our property breaks my heart....From my bathroom window, its 33 yards to the feeder, ask me how I know....

But she is slowly breaking. I got my kids hooked on venisons. in a few years when we have to feed full grown teens, deer meat is going to save alot of money!
 
My wife turn our 1 acre wood lot into a deer sancutuary, she tricked me. Told me we can move out to the countryside and get some lands. Didnt tell me that I wasnt allowed to hunt on my own land. We have 3 feeders at the wood line between our back yard and the woods. She just want to be able to see deer from our deck, which she can PRENTY. At any given day, I see a herd visit us once they got used to the schedule of the feeder's throwing out corn. Some of the bucks I see that visit our property breaks my heart....From my bathroom window, its 33 yards to the feeder, ask me how I know....

But she is slowly breaking. I got my kids hooked on venisons. in a few years when we have to feed full grown teens, deer meat is going to save alot of money!
@swampsnyper lets his boys shoot them from the back porch! haha
 
My son was just telling me about that. He wants a pet deer. Someone had one down the street. It would lay on the porch with the dogs. Story is they found it as a fawn and bottle fed it. It thought it was a dog. It was free to leave when ever it wanted. They put a collar around it’s neck so hunters would know it was tame. It would go from house to house and people would feed it carrots and apples. It would be the highlight of our day taking the kids to school and seeing what that deer was doing. I’d love to have one free ranging like that.
 
My wife turn our 1 acre wood lot into a deer sancutuary, she tricked me. Told me we can move out to the countryside and get some lands. Didnt tell me that I wasnt allowed to hunt on my own land. We have 3 feeders at the wood line between our back yard and the woods. She just want to be able to see deer from our deck, which she can PRENTY. At any given day, I see a herd visit us once they got used to the schedule of the feeder's throwing out corn. Some of the bucks I see that visit our property breaks my heart....From my bathroom window, its 33 yards to the feeder, ask me how I know....

But she is slowly breaking. I got my kids hooked on venisons. in a few years when we have to feed full grown teens, deer meat is going to save alot of money!

Those are what my family calls our "Yard Deer". We have 9 mature apple trees in our back yard and watch deer under them all summer and fall. The wife and kids know that our Yard Deer are safe unless it's after Christmas and I have less than four deer int he freezer. Then the Yard deer are fair game.

My son was just telling me about that. He wants a pet deer. Someone had one down the street. It would lay on the porch with the dogs. Story is they found it as a fawn and bottle fed it. It thought it was a dog. It was free to leave when ever it wanted. They put a collar around it’s neck so hunters would know it was tame. It would go from house to house and people would feed it carrots and apples. It would be the highlight of our day taking the kids to school and seeing what that deer was doing. I’d love to have one free ranging like that.

My Aunt and Uncle had a similar situation. They bottle fed and raised a doe fawn that had it's mother hit by a car. It was always free to leave at anytime but, they would put an orange collar on it every fall before hunting season and take it off in the spring. This was when I was a kid and all of us kids thought it was cool to pet and feed the deer every time we went over. The deer lived to be 6 or 7 years old and every year it would raise it's fawns in their yard also. Funny story, DNR showed up one day and told my uncle that someone reported he had a pet deer. My uncle told him he had no such thing. When the DNR officer replied that it was laying in the yard when he pulled up. My uncle's reponse was that he didn't realize that it was illegal for a deer to be in his yard and that the officer was free to ask the deer to leave if he wanted.
 
Yeah, when I saw Massanutten, VA rental, I knew exactly where the story was going. My good friend sends me pictures every year when his family goes for vacation. The big bucks that eat peanuts out of his 7 yo sons hands. The 50 deer begging for food off his porch. Cool story, but it is kind of like someone from (insert landlocked state) posting a picture of a dolphin when they go to the beach for the first time.
 
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